Shipping Troubles.

Hokitika Guardian, 1 September 1922, Page 3

Shipping Troubles.

POSITION IN ' AMERICA. 111UT1SH COMPETITION FEARED. SAN FRANCISCO, Au K . 4. The troubles of American ship operators appear to be multiplying, and especially for those hardy souls tvljo have chartered vessels owned by the United States Shipping Hoard, a body which has some 095 ships lying idle under its wing in the various hays and inlets ol lire Atlantic and Pacific Coasts, otherwise known as "bonevarus ’ oi .he

august body. . Ihe latest phase of worry that lias bobbed up on* the horizon of the charterers of* Government-owned era! was made known in the port, ol San 1 raiiciseo confident with the arrival in that seaport of the United States Government vessel, the steamer President

Cleveland. . ~ , Mr if. 11. Arnold, the vicc-presiucnt and engineering manager of the Anderson. Meyer and Company, o! Shanghai China,' Oriental reprcsenlatives of the'General Electric Company, was the individual who voiced the latest complaint against the vessels ol the United States Shipping Board, and he said il the ships controlled bv the Board and allocated to various American steamship companies plying between San Francisco and the Orient do not speed up their running time, the trade ol the Jnnnnese exnortcvs will he relegated exclusively to rival foreign lines. The steamer Cleveland by virtue cj rules laid down bv the United States Shipping Board, cannot exceed a speed of 17.5 knots .-in hour, although she is capable of doing better than tins time without additional consumption of fuel, it- is stated.

| The cargo of the President Clove- ; land included shipments of silk valued 'at more than six million dollars, and I according to Mr Arnold, who travelled l on the steamer, these silk shipments 1 constitute the hulk' of the exports from : the Orient and the competition among I steamship companies- for the acquisiI timi of this freight is very keen. 11l | the matter of assigning the shipments i of silk the Japanese exporters are ini fluenced greatly by the matter of time, Mr Arnold intimated, because of the I fact that the money due on them is ! tied up until the arrival of the goods at the Eastern American mills ; to the fact that insurance on such a shipment as that carried bv the Cleveland amounted to 1000 dollars a day, and in ' addition tho added risk of loss by : every day’s delay in reaching the point

of destination. BRITISH SERVICE BETTER. Mr Arnold liatlv declares that there h every probability that, unless the ; American Government-owned boats travel faster, ho foresees tho trade foiling to either, British or Canadian yrwjs, tyl'in RfUorrl nn oxroUfnr- aoryiro

I across the Pacific from the Orient. Ho I estimates that* the Cleveland might I have reached San Francisco at least a j day earlier than she did. This delay, | ho" said, unquestionably is haying an i effect upon Japanese and Chinese shippers, who at the present time (are seriously considering transferrinj? their I trade to the ships of the Osaka Slioscr; Kaisha and the Nippon Yu sen Ivaisha, * whose tormina is are at ScattFo, or ot [ giving it to the liners of the Canadian ! Pacific which ply between Vamcouver j and Yokohama.

i Hus statement brought to lig'.ht the ! fact that* officials of the Pacific Malt | Steamship Company of San Fri incisco recently lodged a complaint witl I the United' States Shipping Board protesting against the speed limit plaet d upon'"”Shipping Board vessels allocated to American operating companies. lit was pointed out that the route.betweo n the northern ports and the Orien t is shorter than that between * San H ranciseo and the Far East, which in .i tself is regarded as a* hardship jh fa von r of tho foreign companies, especially the l Canadian interests, when making; atf hid ! for shipping business. • i Unless the Shipping Board sees . nt to lot down the bars in the matteF; of fixing the speed.of its allocated, vessels, the belief is current in sliippii 'K circles that American ships wifi >be compelled to carry an unnecessary Turn'den that eventually will serve to _r»ditce American shipping in the Pacifira, •

SHIP SUBSIDY PLEA. Svnclironising with the complain® lodged hv tho Oriental shipping inter-% csis', a 'forceful pica was being clo-fl livered in Los Angeles, Southern Cali- | forma, by Air A lever I.issuer, a leading member of the United States Shipping Hoard, advocating an American slop subsidy, and he declared “there is no such thing as a 6-5-3 battleship ratio, unless tho same proposition applies to

the merchant marine.” Air Lissncr, who is the head of a Government commission which toured Western America and enquired into

the operation of American mercantile laws, said: “At present wo have nearly as many cargo ships as Great Britain, hut the trouble with them is that they arc not capable of making more ■ than twelve knots an hour, and Britain has many fast ships, as well as these slow freight ships. “Japan is said to have one-fifth of j the ships of the world, but in the j Japanese ' merchant .marine there aro |at least half as many fast passenger ! ships as there are in 'the United States fleet.

“While wo have about 1-500 steel ships,, we have not l*:i- t of the ships that wo need. Whot- the American merchant marine needs is a large number of fast passenger ships, steamers that can bo changed into transports and hospital ships in 'time' of war, ships that can make twenty knots a:, hour of more, all. kinds <>i ships except tho kind with which we are now over-

stocked.”' ' Preliminary prices obtained by the United State's Emergency Fleet Corporation at its ship chandlery sale held at Tacoma, Washington State, indicated that the big stock of supplies purchased at a cost to Unde Sam of more than 2,000,000 dollars, would not realise more than a few thousand dollars. As an indication of the sacrifices ,-f Government stock, it was learned in San Francisco that ship capstans sold at 170 dollars apiece that cost the people of the United States 3500 dollars' each, and in some instances capstans enstiiio 2000 dollars sold at three for GO dollars. A large amount of the “plunder,” as some of the newspapers cynically designated the goods, auctioned, were sold' in individual lots, and were disposed 'J as junk.